L’HISTOIRE: John Galliano’s Sex and Sacrilege Dior Haute Couture Show in 2000

L’HISTOIRE explores fashion history moments you should know, from what actors wore on a red carpet to celebrities who made cameos on the runway. Some are unsung, and some are better known. Each is part of the fabric of today’s fashion world, be it barrier breakers or culture makers.

Before Rihanna donned her Pope-inspired Margiela ensemble at the 2018 Met Gala, designed by none other than John Galliano, the designer had already been stirring the pot of high fashion with riffs on sacred traditions. Take, for instance, his Fall/Winter 2000 Haute Couture show for Dior—a spectacle that married sin and sanctity in equal measure. It was a heady collision of kink, camp, and couture that left the audience gasping, gawking, and, in some cases, walking out.

The show opened on a deceptively tender note: two models walked down the runway arm-in-arm, portraying a bride and groom. It was a setup worthy of a storybook fairytale... until it wasn't. Flower girls trailed closely behind, played by young models, but the innocence of the ceremony would soon give way to something far more provocative. In true Galliano fashion, the romance quickly unraveled into a fantasy steeped in fetish and theatricality.

Many models after those initial ones appeared bound and gagged, while another wielded a whip. One strutted down the catwalk in full Catholic priest regalia while another took on the guise of a nurse—these kinds of costumes wouldn’t be out of place at a themed party, but they were then elevated to haute couture status. Galliano's models became avatars of sexual archetypes: lovers, sinners, and saints, all in one production. Some were more animalic, literally, in a gorilla mask or full alligator headpiece and matching skin-tight dress. Not to mention one clutching a noose tied around her neck. This was not a collection made for the faint of heart.

The soundtrack, curated by longtime Galliano collaborator Jeremy Healy, matched the collection’s raw eroticism. Alanis Morissette’s haunting “Uninvited” played over the crack of whips and erotic moans, a sonic tableau that scandalized at least one famous guest. “Steven Spielberg came to the show because he [wanted] John to do the costumes for one of his films,” Healy recalled in a 2019 Another Magazine interview. “Steven was so disgusted by the music that he walked out!”

Galliano’s vision was undoubtedly artistic, but this foreshadowed tension between his brilliance and his penchant for controversy. Just over a decade later, Galliano’s career would take a sharp fall. In 2011, he was dismissed from Dior after a video surfaced of him making antisemitic remarks—a scandal that shocked even his most ardent supporters. (The designer later filed an $18.8 million wrongful termination lawsuit against the fashion house, which the courts ultimately dismissed.)

Still, Galliano’s influence never vanished entirely. His brief tenure at Oscar de la Renta and his dramatic rebirth at Maison Margiela proved that his talent for crafting fantasy was undiminished. Even as he stepped away from Margiela December 2024, his DNA remained stitched into the fabric of modern couture. Looking back, the Fall/Winter 2000 Haute Couture collection was less about clothing and more about the performance of extremes—a visual opera where blasphemy and beauty danced hand-in-hand. For Galliano, it was couture as theater, fashion as provocation. In his world, fashion was never meant to play it safe.